Our Journey to Healing March 29th

Romans 15:13

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As I was getting ready for work on Monday, I had a strange realization.  Derek was out in the kitchen drinking his morning coffee and I heard footsteps coming from one of the rooms.  My mind instantly thought,  "I wonder if Derek is coming back here to grab his hat..." and then it hit me. I may never hear his footsteps again. Never hear him bounding down those stairs in Bunker. Never check on him in the middle of our co-ed soccer game when he pulled his hamstring for the 3rd time and hear him complain about how old he is getting.

 As I thought about the concept of footsteps, I realized how footsteps symbolize leadership, trust, and direction. I know the first thing in your head is the little picture every mom has hanging somewhere in their house. The footprints in the sand with a nice, encouraging verse about trusting God. Trust. Trusting. Trusting continually that even if we can't see the direction where He is leading us, there is a purpose. That purpose happens to be greater than the purpose with footsteps.

How ironic, I thought. We replaced shoes for wheels. Muddy footprints with dirty tire tracks. Loud bounding steps with sneaky, quiet rolls. Living a comfortable life complacently with now living a beautiful life completely leaning on God.

PS. The footsteps belonged to our upstairs neighbor

So, that's the lesson from our life this week. A little heavy. A little intense. But, it is what it is.

In other news, we are heading out on a mini-vacation Friday! Our therapist suggested we try flying, so we decided to take her up on the challenge. We will be visiting our good friends Matt & Lisa for a long weekend in Arizona. During college, Derek worked at the Harley Davidson test facility out there and loved it. For years, we have talked about going to his old stomping grounds and having him show me around. So, that is what we are going to do!

Flying with a wheelchair can be a little bit of a process. Well, basically the process is praying the whole time they don't lose his wheelchair. We will get to the airport early and board first. Derek will transfer onto an aisle chair (the aisles are too thin for a regular wheelchair). They will help him transfer into his seat and then we will wait for everyone else to board. His wheelchair will either go down with the luggage or they may be able to store it in the closet at the front of the plane. We have heard horror stories about chairs getting lost, so I am really hoping we can put the chair at the front. We did end up getting a non-stop flight, so thankfully we don't need to go through the whole process more than once. We will be sure to take lots of pictures and are really looking forward to spending time together in a different setting!

 Derek did finish his therapy sessions last week! Both exciting and bittersweet. Exciting to see how far he has come, bittersweet to know there are no other tricks to this paralysis thing. It just is what it is.

Also, we realized an upside to wheelchair life. Derek's shoes will stay nice for years. Gone are the times of me scolding him for wearing his brand new birthday shoes to cut down tree limbs. He picked out some new shoes this week and I told him to choose carefully because he will have these for years!

Thank you for your trip, house, and heart rate prayers!

With Love,

The Lavenders